Ostentatio genitalium
The Ostentatio genitalium (Latin for "showing the genitals") is the artistic staging of the male genitals on the body of Christ in Renaissance art . It can appear in the form of a revealed display, demonstrative hand positions, (self) touch, textile decoration, etc.
Above all in the art of the 15th and 16th centuries there are numerous examples of what has moved into the focus of the representations not only through its position, but also through a multitude of lines of sight and finger points as well as the artful arrangement of an often opened or slipped loincloth Genitals of Christ, as it is not usually found in older art. In principle, the genital of Christ is more uncovered in portraits of children, while in scenes of the Passion, lavishly draped loincloths emphasize the genital region. In art-historical terms , the Ostentatio genitalium is interpreted as an expression of the greatest possible self-humiliation or the acceptance of human weaknesses in the incarnation of God , in the words of Leo Steinberg it is testified to "that God unconditionally descended into the position of man".
The wider circle of corresponding representations includes portraits with the circumcision of Christ , although in Renaissance painting the genital of Christ is often covered (e.g. by a hand of Mary). Art scholars like Steinberg also see a connection between the circumcision motif and some depictions of the crucifixion, in which the blood leaking from the side wound runs over the loincloth, creating an artistic connection between the first and last wound. Images of the Entombment, in which a hand of the dead Christ rests on his genital area, have a similar level of meaning.
Some historians, such as Jean-Claude Schmitt or Jérôme Baschet, also regard the covering of the genitals with an emphatically flared loincloth as symbolic castration , while at the same time one recognizes a feminization of the body of Christ in the wound on the side, which is sometimes depicted as a female genital. The emphasis and simultaneous concealment of sexual characteristics is intended to indicate the fertility of Jesus, which, however, is reflected not in bodily, but in spiritual descendants.
The Ostentatio genitalium in Renaissance art bypasses the question of the sexuality of Christ by the fact that the erect member only appears in portraits of children or in the suffering or already dead Christ, in the latter in a level of meaning that suggests the overcoming of death. A prominent example of this is the Man of Sorrows by Maarten van Heemskerck with wounds and a crown of thorns around 1550, in which an erect penis is clearly visible under the loincloth in the center of the picture. Further examples are Ludwig Krug's Man of Sorrows around 1520 and Hans Schäufelin's Crucifixion of Christ from 1515. By embedding the phallic depictions of Christ in the passion story filled with sorrow, the depictions simultaneously negate lust and sexualization. In doing so, they follow the theological morals of their time and suggest chastity as a means of regaining salvation. In confrontation with Augustine, Steinberg states the paradoxical atonement of the fall of man in the Ostentatio genitalium , the animal-involuntary sexual desire is replaced by the dispassionate free will to erect.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Leo Steinberg: Adam's crime . In: Christoph Geissmar-Brandi , Eleonora Louis (Ed.): Faith Hope Love Death . Klagenfurt 1996. p. 170.
- ↑ Leo Steinberg: Adam's crime . In: Christoph Geissmar-Brandi, Eleonora Louis (Ed.): Faith Hope Love Death . Klagenfurt 1996. p. 168.
literature
- Leo Steinberg : The sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion. Chicago 1997.
- Monika Gsell : Air sex and spiritual children. The staging of the male genitals on the body of Christ. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , 11./12. April 1998, pp. 67/68.